Crazy Times

Sorry for the lack of updates.  It has been a nut house around here!!!  I'll begin with the week after I left off.  Bennie's PET Scan results from the body were great!  No tumors were found within the body, and so at this point we are solely focusing on keeping the brain clear.  We met with his oncologist who recommended that Bennie begin taking a chemo called Temodar.  It is one of the only chemos that crosses the blood brain barrier.  Temodar is not FDA approved for the treatment of melanoma in the brain, but essentially it is for other brain cancers so it could be useful in treating melanoma as well.  It's not a great option, but it is something that has worked for others for awhile.  So we will try it!! Temodar is a pill that Bennie will take each evening, about 3 hours after dinner.  He has to take anti nausea medicine beforehand to keep from getting sick.  The side effects aren't as bad as the chemo he was taking last summer, but could make him more sick to his stomach and make him tired.  His oncologist is not recommending any other type of treatments for his body right now, and he will get another scan in a couple of months to keep an eye out in the body for tumors to pop up.  So Bennie was going to start taking that medicine but his liver levels were sky high!! So much so that the Dr. thought that the machine was broken or made an error.  It was determined that Bennie's liver didn't like all the Tylenol after surgery, and he was to lay off Tylenol for a week so he could have blood retested to see if it would be safe to start chemo then.  We were pretty excited that he wouldn't have to start chemo until after Christmas!! Wahoo!  But then the very next day Emmi got a fever of 103.  I rushed her to the urgent care to try and get medicine to prevent her from spreading it to Bennie.  She tested negative for flu and strep, but they said it could still be too early to tell.  Emmi had fever for the next 4 days.  Then Christmas Eve comes along and Emmi is beginning to take a turn for the better!!! YAY!! But then Bennie starts coughing, and I feel his forehead and he is burning up!! NOOO!! NOT CHRISTMAS!!! I was so fearful he would have to go back to the hospital.  He had a fever of 101.... and he wasn't supposed to have Tylenol or MOTRIN!!! Well, I gave him a couple anyways so we could at least enjoy Christmas.  The morning after Christmas I took him to the urgent care center and he tested positive for the flu and strep (which means little Emmi had it as well... I just took her to early).  So he got a shot, antibiotics to take for 7 days, Tamiflu, and cough syrup.  The next day we had to go down to MD Anderson to meet his radiation oncologist.  She really didn't have a decision about what type of radiation to do (whole brain or gamma knife) because his Dr. (neurologist) is on Christmas vacation for the next week.  She went ahead and put him on the schedule for the end of January for gamma knife....because the schedule was filling up quickly.  So within the next few days we should have a solid answer on what type of radiation Bennie will be getting on the brain.  Also, his liver levels have evened out and he took his first Temodar pill last night.  So far so good.... no nausea or vomiting.....but it may be more of a cumulative effect.  The more meds that get in your system the worse you feel.  So, we are praying for no side effects from this drug.  We are also praying that the Dr.'s are able to choose the appropriate type of radiation for Bennie to have, and that it will be easy on him.  And we are also praying that the brain is still clear from his last brain mri after surgery!!!!!!!  It's been a crazy month, and we are tired!!!!!!  Colby ended up with the flu this week, but got over it a little quicker because I got some Tamiflu for him beforehand!! WE are HOPING THE NEXT MONTH IS EASIER!! We need a little bit of a break!!!!